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Tuesday, October 22, 2013

New in New York: Potatopia is a Paradise of Potato Possibilities

By Mitch Broder

If, like me, you can’t enjoy a potato without a choice of 10
aiolis, then you grasp the importance to total potato gratification of
Potatopia.

Well, actually, that’s not like me. I really don’t want any
aiolis. And if I did, I probably wouldn’t want them anywhere near my potato. I would
want sour cream, or maybe cheese. But Potatopia has those, too, which means that
it seeks to gratify everyone, which makes it truly a Potato Utopia.

Potatopia is a new idea that, in New York, you’d think is an
old one: a restaurant that serves only meals featuring potatoes. It offers 10
different forms of potatoes, 16 different toppings, six different “proteins,”
and 15 different sauces, including, indeed, 10 different aiolis.

I got 100 on my eighth-grade math midterm, but I still can’t
begin to calculate how many different potato-meal options those choices can yield.
But I’m pretty sure that you could get a different one every day for the rest
of your life and die in old age regretting all the potato combinations you missed.

All these choices are on the menu under “Build Your
Own/Follow Steps 1 - 4.” As I have previously expressed here, I tend to get ruffled by Steps. But for the Step-averse, there is “Signature
Meals/Leave It To The Potato Experts.” The Potato Experts offer seven Step-free
selections.

There have long been guys in the city with potato
carts. But to make all the stuff in Potatopia, a guy’d need a potato
Winnebago. That’s the point of Potatopia: It’s not a baked-potato joint. It’s closer to an unprecedented spudian smorgasbord.

Not unprecedented, though. Potatopia had an out-of-town
tryout. Its first store opened two years ago in, inventively, Edison, New
Jersey. But its founder, Allen Dikker, acknowledges that he opened it with the
goal of opening his second store in New York.

He anointed potatoes, he says, because “everything else is out
there.” In a city with restaurants like OatMeals, that’s more or less true. He
conducted aioli experiments at home to assemble his roster of sauces. Not
surprisingly, he’s now at work on an all-potato cookbook.

Before the grand opening.

Potatopia’s top potato is the Smashed Hit, though there is
interest in the most complex choice, which has 16 ingredients, four of which
are cheeses. It’s called the Comatoser. The store has been open for just a few
weeks, but Allen says that more are already on the way. He’s understandably feeling
his oats.

Still, he also acknowledges that I’m far from the only person
who is perturbed by the profusion of potato possibilities. As the store manager,
Albert Sierra, told me: “In the beginning, people find it a little
intimidating. But by the second or third time, they get used to it.”

Weigh your options at
Potatopia, 378 Sixth Avenue, between Waverly Place and West Eighth Street, New York
City.

POTATOPIA HAS A LOT — BUT IT
DOESN’T HAVE A KNISH. FOR THAT, YOU NEED THE CENTURY-OLD YONAH SCHIMMEL KNISH
BAKERY. FIND YONAH SCHIMMEL, ALONG WITH OF DOZENS OF OTHER CLASSIC CITY SPOTS,
IN THE AMAZON BEST SELLER “DISCOVERING VINTAGE NEW YORK”!

New York Chronicles

About Me

For twenty years, I wrote about New York for the nation's largest newspaper chain. Now I write about New York for the nation's largest Internet. I do this because I love to explore the city and to share what I've found, except when I'm greedy about it and decide to keep it to myself.
"Vintage," of course, means old, but it also means timeless. It's my defense for covering new things that evoke old New York spirit. But I mostly cover the best places that take you back in time, whether you are revisiting a time or just now discovering it.
On the street I still feel like a tourist, and I tend to look like one, too. These are perhaps my greatest qualifications. Among my others are some of the top prizes in New York City journalism, which nobody really cares about because they're not a Pulitzer.